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World Suicide Prevention Day – how we’re supporting all our patients and staff

10th September 2020 - 7:01 AM


Today is #WorldSuicidePreventionDay.

Dr Louise Barker, GP Partner at Haxby Group explains how we are reaching out to patients as a Practice:

“As a community, our patients and staff are united in their experience of the many difficulties of 2020.
The struggles we’ve faced in recent months just highlight, more than ever, the need to pull together when times are difficult.
We know, however, that there is often an unspoken barrier between health professionals and patients – suggesting a difference in value or experience between us and those we treat.
Patients may assume that we can’t understand how they feel or help them, because we haven’t had the same experience.
From today – Suicide Prevention Day- onwards, we will seek to knock down this barrier, and remove any division.
As a practice, we want to show people that mental health is simply an aspect of wider health.
As people, we share many of the experiences our patients may sometimes fear disclosing to us. Through our dedicated suicide prevention training, we try to offer support and not judgment and ask that patients reach out if they need us.
Over the next few weeks our staff will be speaking about some of their own experiences of how they have struggled with their mental health at some stage in their lives.
We ask that people tell us if they are struggling so we can offer help. We also ask ourselves, have we looked for and spotted any signs that our patients or colleagues, are considering suicide – so we can help prevent this happening to others.”

#humansofhaxby
#suicideprevention
#stepcloser
#WSPD2020

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